The paper explores the issue of witchcraft in contemporary African societies, examining its implications and connections to the AIDS epidemic. It delves into how beliefs surrounding witchcraft influence social dynamics and health perceptions, highlighting the complexities of cultural practices in the face of modern challenges. The analysis provides insight into the interplay between traditional beliefs and contemporary health crises, offering a critical perspective on societal responses to disease and superstition.
Focusing on linguistic analysis, this seminar paper examines newspaper articles related to a specific event during the Iraq War. Utilizing theoretical frameworks from prominent linguists such as Alan Bell and Teun van Dijk, the study explores how language shapes the representation of war in media. The research highlights the interplay between language and ideology, providing insights into discourse analysis within the context of conflict reporting.
The aim of this thesis is to explore ways of modelling adaptive agents in Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) models. A general reinforcement learning framework is developed and implemented in a simulation system. This system is used to implement three models of increasing complexity in two different economic domains. One of these domains form iterative games in which agents meet repeatedly and interact. In an experimental labour market, it is shown how statistical discrimination can be generated simply by the learning algorithm used. The results resemble actual patterns of observed human behaviour in laboratory settings. A second model treats strategic network formation. The main contribution in this area is to show how agent-based modelling helps to analyse non-linearity that is introduced when assumptions of perfect information and full rationality are relaxed. The other domain has a Health Economics background. The aim here is to provide insights of how the approach might be useful in real-world applications. For this, a general model of primary care is developed, and the implications of different consumer behaviour patterns (based on the learning features introduced before) analysed.
Die vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich der durch die Telefunken-Fälle aktuellen und bereits viel diskutierten, aber noch keineswegs befriedigend gelösten Fragen nach der Behandlung atypischer Vertriebsformen im GWB. Der Autor vertritt dabei eine von der überwiegenden Meinung abweichende, gut begründete Theorie der wirtschaftlich orientierten Betrachtungsweise, in der eine Analyse der Funktions- und Risikoverteilung zwischen den Parteien des Absatzmittlungsvertrages einfließt und die zu einer weitgehenden Subsummierung atypischer Absatzmittlungsverträge unter das Wettbewerbsrecht führt. Eine Anwendung dieser Theorie auf die in der Praxis bedeutsamen Absatzmittlungsformen und die wettbewerbsrechtliche Behandlung sonstiger atypischer Vertriebsformen (insbesondere Franchising und shop-in-shop-Systeme) sowie Ausführungen zum EG-Recht (Pronuptia-Entscheidung) runden die Arbeit ab.
